


It's Not Enough to Save the Day

by Idlewild



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 06:28:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idlewild/pseuds/Idlewild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of scenes where Donna discovers that the Doctor has nightmares and does her best to comfort him. Inspired by the Chameleon Circuit song Nightmares. DoctorDonna friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hey old man

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set somewhere between Forests of the Dead and Turn Left, possibly after Midnight. I think the Doctor’s reactions to Midnight have been explored excellently in many other fics, so I went off on a different tangent.  
> (This has been previously posted on fanfiction . net, but I've decided to transfer my stories to this superior database.)

It’s never really night or day in the TARDIS. When you’re tired, you sleep, and when you’re bored, you land somewhere and get into trouble. If you’re a Time Lord and have a human on board, you while away the hours that they waste on a circadian rhythm by twiddling around and tweaking various bits of machinery. If you happen to be the human, though, all the hopping between planets and eras can really throw your sleeping patterns into disarray.

Right now, at what her mobile told her was half past two in the morning, Donna had been trying to get to sleep for several hours. She finally gave up, put her fuzzy robe on and went off to look for the Doctor. Maybe he would like to join her for a cup of tea. When she got to the console room she found it empty, but just as she was about to head off to the kitchen on her own, she heard a small sound coming from the odd-looking sofa by the console. Coming around the nearby pillar, she saw the Doctor curled up on the sofa, fast asleep. She was a bit surprised that he could fit on there; he usually took up so much more space than his gangly frame would require, and Donna had never seen him looking so small. He appeared to be dreaming, eyes moving erratically behind their lids. As Donna watched, he winced and started mumbling in his sleep. She didn’t understand a word – was he speaking Gallifreyan? Why didn’t it translate? Whatever it was, it was clearly a very bad dream. The Doctor's trainer-clad feet twitched where they poked out over the edge of the sofa, and his voice was full of anguish. In fact, Donna was glad that she didn’t understand him, that she didn’t get that insight into his mind. It made her heart ache just seeing him this distressed.

For a second, she contemplated waking him, but she quickly dismissed the idea. She knew how private he was; he wouldn’t want her to have seen him like this. So instead she retreated, backing off the way she had come while wishing she could do something to comfort him and banish the guilt that this short episode had left her with.

She was almost into the corridor when there came a clattering thud from behind her, making her jump and turn around. The Doctor had fallen off his makeshift bed and was now manoeuvring himself into a sitting position. He hadn’t noticed her presence, and she could see the ravages of the nightmare still lingering on his features. He would see her as soon as she moved, so she started walking towards him very deliberately before stopping dead and exclaiming ‘What are you doing on the floor?’ in her best you-weird-time-boy voice.

The Doctor looked up at her, a split-second of shock in his eyes before he turned away, scrubbed his hands down his face and picked something up off the floor. The next moment, he had jumped to his feet with his usual grin slapped on.

‘Dropped my sonic!’ he said, waggling it back and forth between thumb and forefinger. She rolled her eyes at him, and he continued, ‘And what are you doing awake at this hour?’

Donna didn’t bother asking how he knew what hour that was without looking at a clock. He always knew.

‘Couldn’t sleep, could I? The way we keep jumping about, it’s like a jet-lag on steroids! Thought I’d get some tea or something. Jammie dodger?’ She cocked her head at him. ‘How’s that sound?’

‘Sure, great!’ the Doctor enthused, pocketing his screwdriver and trooping after Donna to the kitchen. She set about making tea, avoiding looking at him. She didn’t often feel this awkward around him, and she was sure that her guilt and confusion would show if he saw her face. However, the Doctor had plopped himself in a chair and seemed utterly oblivious to her mood, his cheery demeanour from earlier having fallen away like a dropped cloak. Donna observed him out of the corner of her eye as she rummaged through a cupboard for the biscuit tin. He looked exhausted and more than a little lost where he sat with his head in one hand, fiddling absent-mindedly with the TARDIS-shaped salt shaker.

Setting the biscuits down in front of him, she remarked with what she hoped was her usual chipper bluntness. ‘You look rather terrible, do you know that? Maybe you should just get to bed and I can look after the TARDIS for the night.’

‘Nah. Couldn’t sleep right now anyway. Just some tea, thanks, that’ll sort me out – does wonder for the synapses.’

‘Yeah, well, you’ve got to sleep at some point, I'm sure. Even Time Lords need sleep.’

‘Of course we do, yeah. Thanks, Donna,’ he added as she handed him a steaming cup. She sat down diagonally across from him and leaned over her own tea, making a point of looking at him now. All her earlier befuddlement and discomfort turned into compassion as she took in his haggard appearance.

‘Are you all right, though? ‘Cause if you’re not, you can tell me. I’ll always listen.’

The Doctor was looking down into his tea, his throat bobbing before he replied ‘Thank you, Donna, but I can’t. It’s not you, I just… I can’t.'

He finally raised his eyes to meet hers then, and she could see shadows in their darkness, shadows that told of how old he really was. So much time and so much loss. Donna simply nodded and laid her hand on his arm, trying to communicate her sympathy and understanding without words. With a smile that trembled ever so slightly at its edges, the Doctor briefly put his hand over hers. She kept her hand in place as they sipped their tea in silence, and it was the most eloquent silence Donna had ever known.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! If you did, do continue to the next two chapters, and please review whenever you feel like it! :)


	2. I can't escape my nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a songfic of sorts. If you haven’t heard Chameleon Circuit's music, please listen to Nightmares before reading; it’ll make things that much better. Also, it's a lovely song! You can hear it on Spotify and YouTube.

Living in the TARDIS is like living in a vast, sprawling mansion. It has long, carpeted corridors, stairs heading every which way and lots of unexpected shortcuts. At least Donna assumes they’re shortcuts – it could just be that the layout keeps rearranging itself. During her first weeks on board, she was scared to go off on her own, thinking she would likely get lost in the immense interior unless she brought a bag of bread crumbs or a ball of yarn with her. The Doctor had just grinned when she admitted that to him, told her not to worry and ushered her out of the console room.

‘Live a little, Donna!’ he had said. ‘How else will you learn anything?’

So now, whenever they got a little downtime that she didn’t need for catching up on sleep, Donna would wander around exploring. She had found many fascinating places, including a swimming pool, a huge planetarium in which you could scroll through a three-dimensional model of any solar system or galaxy, and an incredibly dusty and disused bowling alley. Just the other day on her way to bed, she had stumbled across a library. Having been to The Library, she supposed it wasn’t that big, although most humans would have disagreed, but she had left off investigating it for a day when she wasn’t exhausted.

That was where she was headed now, if she could remember where it was. It had had green double doors with golden door knobs… yes! There it was. Stepping through and closing the doors behind her, she started roaming along the tall mahogany bookcases which lined the walls. There were ladders leading up to a slender balcony running all the way around the room, and more ladders going up towards the skylight ceiling. Donna gaped at it, wondering how there could be a sky inside a ship that was hurtling through a time vortex. The sun was apparently setting, turning the bright sky a burnt orange. How strange that it should be sunset in the late afternoon when the TARDIS normally seemed attuned to her own country’s time frame.

Strolling further in, she found a collection of instruments of various shapes and sizes. Donna had never learned to play an instrument, but she couldn’t resist sitting down in front of a piano-related contraption and trying out its colourful keys. It sounded a lot like a piano as well, and she spent a few minutes trying to find the notes to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before moving on.

There were more bookcases, only one ladder high, standing back to back in some kind of pattern across the floor. Walking slowly along a random shelf with her hand dragging across tomes and booklets in pretty bindings, she smiled to find a full collection of Agatha Christie’s works. She selected Murder on the Orient Express and took it with her to a group of plush, high-backed sofas near the musical area.

Some hour-and-a-half into reading, the sky was still sunset coloured and Donna’s eyelids were getting heavy. She lay down on her back and gazed up at the glass ceiling, the book open on her chest. That was no ordinary Earth sky, she thought hazily, but before she could speculate on that any further, she had dozed off.  
__________________________________________

When Donna woke up, she noticed two things: the sky had gone black, and there was music coming from behind her sofa. It sounded like the not-quite-a-piano that she had tried… seven hours ago according to her phone. How could she have slept for that long at this hour? Her book had fallen to the floor, and the library was dark around her. Just when she had picked up the book and was looking around for a lamp, the music stopped. Donna’s brain suddenly kicked into gear as she realised that the only person who could be in here playing was the Doctor. She’d had no idea that he was that musical. She sat up on her knees to peer over the back of the sofa and smiled to see him in front of the large instrument. He had his back to her and was writing in a book set on the note stand. Hadn’t he seen her, coming in here? She guessed not, because the only light in the room was centred around the instruments, and the sofas were sort of shielding each other. If she announced her presence, he would most likely stop playing, and she had enjoyed listening to the soothing sound of his music, so instead she lay back down on the sofa, hoping he would resume it.

When he did, she closed her eyes and let the complex notes drift through her mind. They sounded sad and contemplative now, the notes, and just a bit hesitant, as though the Doctor were just learning or composing this piece. After a while of melodies and chords weaving together, the chords were suddenly on their own and Doctor was singing the melody instead. The more Donna listened, the more she wished that she wasn’t, because this song was obviously private.

[Nightmares, Chameleon Circuit]

After repeating the chorus, the sound of the piano turned more organ-like as he played a small melody with no accompanying chords, and then the music stopped. A few silent tears had run down Donna’s temples unnoticed, and she wiped them away trying to decide what to do. She had been eavesdropping, that was all there was to it, and she felt ashamed of herself. If she could have sneaked away unseen she would have done so a while ago, but it was impossible. Then again, since she was here, couldn’t she just go over there and try to take away the sadness she had heard in her friend’s voice? Would he welcome her caring or would he pretend that everything was fine? She couldn’t bear to see that fake smile that he plastered on his face sometimes like some kind of shield.

Several minutes of indecision passed by before Donna got worried enough by the total silence to stick her head up over the sofa back again. The Doctor was still sitting in front of his piano, but he had shut the lid and had his elbows up on it, his head in his hands. It looked like he was crying. That clinched the matter; Donna put the book down on the sofa arm and made her way over to him.

‘Doctor?’ she prompted, and he jumped a little, then drew his hands across his face before turning halfway around and looking up at her. His eyes held the remains of tears, but she was still relieved to see no grin on his face, just a small smile.

‘Donna! I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Oh, I didn’t. I was asleep on the sofa,’ gesturing over her shoulder towards it, ‘and I just woke up.’ The Doctor simply nodded, and Donna continued ‘I didn’t know you played the… whatever that thing is.’

‘Gallifreyan melliphone. I just fool around on it sometimes, nothing grand.’

For a second, Donna considered leaving it at that, but she’d had enough of concealing things from him after the recent episode with the console room sofa and the sad tea drinking. Leaning against the melliphone and looking down at the floor, she admitted, ‘I heard you singing.’

‘Yeah…’ the Doctor sighed, ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Oi, don’t you apologise! I should be the one apologising for listening in. I just woke up and I heard you play and it was so beautiful, and then you started singing and I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry.’ She paused, wishing he would open up or wave it all away or just say anything to break this awkwardness. When nothing was forthcoming, she asked, ‘Do you often write songs in here?’

‘Yeah. Well, not that often. Well… sometimes. I’ve always found music to be a great outlet. Feel much better now.’

‘Good,’ Donna said, smiling at him. And he did look a lot better, actually; less pale and red-eyed, and fairly relaxed as he smiled back. It occurred to her that he must be relieved that she wasn’t pushing him to talk about the song, and maybe even glad to have her there.

‘I can’t play anything,’ she said. ‘Maybe you could teach me?’

By way of response, the Doctor scooted to one side of the long stool and patted it next to him. When she sat down, he put his arm around her shoulders briefly, squeezing, and she knew they were okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The melody at the end of the Doctor’s song is of course The Doctor’s Theme by Murray Gold, which is woven into the background of Nightmares.  
> Thanks for reading, lovely, and don't forget the last chapter!


	3. How can I think to hide?

As room-mates go, the TARDIS is rather nice to live with. She may be nothing more than an energy hidden within her machinery, but she has her own ways of showing kindness. Sometimes she has a bad day and throws a temper tantrum, and sometimes she gets jealous when her Doctor hangs out with Donna and forgets to spend time with her, but on the whole, she's a caring and considerate... person might be the wrong word, Donna thinks. Presence; individual maybe. She likes to look after her passengers. One time when Donna and the Doctor came home soaked from a never-ending storm, she turned up the heat and blew warm air through the console room until they were dry. When they're bored, she likes to land in unexpected and intriguing places, and Donna is pretty sure the TARDIS is the one who makes sure they never run out of tea or toilet paper. And now and then, she helps them out in the subtlest of ways, just a nudge in the right direction.  
__________________________________________

Ever since The Library, Donna was having a hard time sleeping. She would turn out all her lamps so there were no worrisome shadows in the room, but sometimes she would wake from stressful dreams about sensor ghosts and moving silhouettes and be unable to get back to sleep. Tonight was such a night. Growling to herself, she rolled out of bed and headed blindly for the door. The golden light in the corridor made her squint, dim though it was, as she walked to the loo, and she silently cursed herself for a fool as she checked for extraneous shadows in there before going inside. Surely the TARDIS was safe; no Vashta Nerada could live on this caring ship.

As Donna was padding back to bed, she dimly noticed how a door on the other side of the hall swung open a crack. She stopped and frowned at it. That was the Doctor’s bedroom, but he wasn’t coming out. The door opened a few more inches and the corridor somehow seemed to be sloping towards it; clearly the TARDIS was trying to tell her something here. As she took a few hesitant steps in that direction, she heard a small, despairing sound from inside that she recognised. She had last heard it in the console room, a few weeks ago. When she closed the distance to the door, it opened wide in a most inviting manner, and this time Donna decided not to leave and pretend not to notice.

She had never been in this room before, but it was much like hers – not too big, but pleasant; bed, wardrobe, huge carpet, odd art on the walls. The bed was a bit of a mess with the Doctor in the middle, legs all tangled up in his sheets. With uncertainty and sympathy warring inside her, Donna tiptoed over to him and sat on the edge of the bed. He had gone still and quiet, but there was a tension in his thin lines which told her that he was not sleeping soundly.

‘Doctor?’ she whispered, then repeated it a little more loudly. He still didn’t wake, but his breathing grew irregular as his jaw clenched. This time when he started talking, Donna could understand what he was saying, but he just moaned ‘No no no no…’ over and over. She put a hand lightly on his chest, right between his racing hearts, in an attempt to call him back to reality, and watched as he started throwing his head back and forth. Then his eyes flew open, still unfocussed, and he batted her hand away as he sat bolt upright, narrowly avoiding head-butting her. Donna caught him up in an embrace before he could fall back on the bed, mumbling comfort into his ear. He buried his face in her shoulder, arms sneaking around her back to hold her almost painfully tight. She could feel the quadruple thud of his heartbeat, hard and fast against her chest.

‘Why can’t I save them, Donna?’ he asked, so silently that she barely heard him. Even when she pieced the question together, she had a hard time believing her ears.

‘What are you on about, Space Boy? You’re always saving everyone! Whole worlds are safe in the sky because of you!’

Hands opened and closed around her pyjama jacket as he muttered, ‘No, but… I know, but… I want to save everyone…’ He sounded more like a small child, now, than a nine-hundred-year-old hero. In an attempt to comfort him, she moved one hand to his head, fingers automatically raking through tousled hair.

‘No one can save everyone, Doctor. You do a bloody good job, but even you can’t do that.’

The Doctor seemed to be relaxing somewhat, though if it was thanks to her words, her fingers in his hair or just that he was waking up properly, Donna wasn’t sure. She kept up the stroking as she told him something she had been wanting to tell him for a very long time.

‘You saved me, anyway, do you know that? I was no one before I met you, and I still would be if you hadn’t saved me from myself. I would have been a temp for the rest of my life, living with my mum – stupid, pathetic, useless Donna.’

The Doctor was shaking his head, and then he released her as he sat back slightly. ‘You were never pathetic, Donna,’ he said, looking firmly into her eyes as though willing her to believe him.

‘But I was, though. I was, but now I’m not, ‘cause now I’m doing something. With you.’

‘And you’re brilliant.’ He smiled at her, but his eyes still held that sadness, shining dully behind unshed tears.

‘So are you,’ she said, nodding vigourously as he looked away. ‘You are. You’re the most brilliant person I’ve ever known. You make a difference wherever you go. Hey? Doctor?’

But he wasn’t looking at her, eyes downcast and fingers idly playing with a corner of the duvet.

‘This young woman, Joan… I ruined her life, in the end… she asked me,’ small pause, deep breath, ‘“If you’d never chosen this place, on a whim, would anyone here have died?” And I couldn’t say –’ His voice broke, then, but he went on. ‘That’s what I do, Donna. I bring disaster.’

Donna tried to interrupt him, to tell him that he prevented bigger disasters all the time, but he held up a hand as he turned back towards her. ‘No, let me just… There’s this race called the Daleks – I hope you never have to meet them, Donna, I really do – they have a name for me. They call me The Oncoming Storm. Quite right too. I keep wiping them out, and they keep coming back, and I think I fear them most of all because of what they make me – because they show me what I can be.’ Swallowing and returning his focus to the quilt, he looked as though he was steeling himself for the next bit. ‘One of them actually told me I would make a good Dalek. I was horrified at the very thought, because they’re driven by hate and they want only the destruction of everything that isn’t them. I don’t think I’m like that. I try so hard to do what’s right, but people die all around me and I can’t stop… This is what I do. How could I stop?’ His voice had reduced to hardly more than a whisper, lost and despondent.

Donna’s mind was swirling around words like fear and hate and destruction. They were words she would never have thought to associate with the Doctor, but how could she tell him that without sounding like she was contradicting him?

‘Well then, I think that Dalek was a complete moron, and I’d’ve given it a good slapping given half a chance! If they’re all about hate, then you’re nothing like them. Nothing! All I see when you whiz about the universe is love.’

The Doctor was silently crying now, and a tiny sound of disbelief escaped him as he shook his head.

‘Yes,’ Donna insisted, ‘love. You look at terrifying creatures and call them marvellous, and when you do, I see them through your eyes. You always try for the peaceful solutions – I mean, you won’t even touch a weapon! – and only when that goes all pear-shaped will you ever threaten anyone. If someone dies around you, it’s either their own fault for not agreeing to your peace plan, or just plain bad luck. You do your best, but some you’ll lose.’

She grabbed hold of his hand as a thought struck her. ‘I see a lot of my old Gramps in you, you know. He went to war, and he lived, but he lost some friends. He saw people die. It’s been ages and he’s still heartbroken about it. I think he has survivor’s guilt, and I think you do too. You live your life like a war on the run sometimes, but you mustn’t think that’s all there is. So many people owe their lives to you. I mean, think of the Ood!’

The Doctor made a noise halfway between a laugh and a sob. ‘Yeah, that was a species and a half, wasn’t it? Good old Ood.’

‘See? Think of all the other races like them, that would be dust if you hadn’t shown up. Humans, for one! Hmm? Think of them, not the others.’

She smiled as he nodded, squeezing his hand encouragingly.

‘I do. When I’m awake, I do. But when I dream… I keep seeing the ones I couldn’t save.’ He sounded so hopeless as he added, ’I can’t run from that. I can’t hide.’

‘Don’t hide. Dreams are good, they kind of work through your memories until they’re all neatly sorted away. Look, how about you don’t try so hard to escape your nightmares? You could tell me about them instead, and maybe they’ll stop haunting you.’

There was a short silence, and then suddenly the Doctor was looking her in the eye again. He looked both shocked and fascinated, his entire focus pouring out at her. Tears had charted their course down his cheeks, but all the pain in his gaze had been replaced by hope and trust. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he shook his head, almost incredulous.

‘Donna, you’re amazing,’ he said, finally, with a smile lighting up his eyes.

She smiled back. ‘I have my moments.’

The Doctor nodded, then wiped his cheeks with his hand, sniffling, before turning towards a spindly-legged nightstand. He couldn’t reach it, because his legs were still entangled in the sheets. Donna got off the bed, eyeing the tiny table.

‘Tissue?’ she guessed.

‘Handkerchief,’ he corrected as he managed to scoot free of the bedclothes. Donna opened the drawer and found a small pile of folded possibly-cotton squares with interesting patterns in a corner. She handed one over, and he blew his nose. It was quite funny, really; an almost millennium-old alien, crying just like any human. Donna decided not to voice that thought as she hovered uncertainly a few steps away. The Doctor laid the handkerchief down atop the nightstand and looked up at her. Something about his demeanour made her sit back down next to him, and he immediately put his arms around her. She hugged him back, her hand finding his hair again.

‘Thank you for being here, Donna,’ he said, his voice wobbling slightly.

Donna got the feeling that more handkerchiefs would be needed tonight. Not that she minded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Donna sort of quoted something the Doctor hasn’t yet said on the show, which I think actually makes him paraphrase her… Wibbly wobbly timey wimey, yeah?  
> Thanks ever so for reading! Reviews are always more than welcome. <3


End file.
